With the People You Hopefully Love

Chloe Wright

I knew it! I knew something was off. I knew as soon as I left the house, something would be off. This house is a shade darker than when we left it. I mean it, I tell him... I mean, I try to. I try to even though the chattering of his teeth keeps on interrupting me.

He pats my back. “You're being paranoid.”

“No, I'm not,” I say. “I'm not at all.”

“You do realize how daylight works, right?” I pout. “I– I mean, look up there. Up the hill. You see that?”

“The Benedicts’ house? They owe me and Alicia money... Ah, we need to get our lights up too–” 

“Do you see the sun?” I nod. “Once it gets behind the hill, the ground is gonna get darker. So, naturally...” He rotates his hands, one counterclockwise and the other clockwise, toward my chest. I open my mouth and close it. “Your house–”

“My house would get darker, Damien. My house would get darker.”

“Good, good.” He rubs his arms and exhales harshly. “Can we please go inside?”

I’m eyeing the house and spitting out the fur from my mink coat. It's drifting into my mouth, and it’s impeding my ability to function. I am not pleased. “Of course.” 

The paint is darker. And peeling off. It’s doing both of those things, and when we left for the English Buffalo, the paint was lighter and firmly on the planks. But, no. This is how it’s going to be today. “I know how basic science works, by the way.”

“I know.” He leans back, patting my hand. “Are you alright? Do you wanna take my coat?”

“The heat is on inside. Let’s run in, and there–” I grab his hand and pull him into the veranda– “we can relax. Turn on Hallmark. Make a charcuterie board.”

“With cheese? Havarti?”

Damien has loved Havarti ever since we had some at the restaurant. He saw it on the menu as an element to I believe meatloaf, and then he said it was gross. “It sounds like the name of some luxury hotel chain,” he said. When I ordered it, he ate it off my plate, and now he’s in love.

“Of course,” I say. “After all, salami is boring. And kind of yucky.”

I don't bother knocking on the door. I grab the toasty, copper doorknob and open it to darkness. Fun. 

“I'll turn on the lights when we get to the living room,” I’m hissing in his ear. He closes the door behind me, winces, and waves his hand in the air, apathetically fanning away from his face. He then proceeds to chuckle loudly, and I decide to chuckle loudly as well. Then I snap my fingers and tell him to wait. “Wait,” I say. He nods. I need to readjust the pillows. Or fluff them. Or do both. When I walk into the living room, smoke finds its way into my nostrils. I'm not sure about other houses in this neighborhood, but, in my house, to leave a candle unattended in one’s living room is a punishable offense. Then I open my eyes and turn on the lights.

She looks up from the floor and the knife in her hands and grins. “Oh, Sam. We need you for a second–”

“Alicia.” My voice is muffled by the hands over my face.

“How much blood should I add to the cauldron? A drop?” She is tossing the knife into both hands, back and forth. She maintains eye contact. All I see are sullen sockets with gilded irises. “Oh, I'm being rude.” She glares at her friends (I think from her Zumba class) until they both wave simultaneously. They look as if some spectre sucked out any ounce of emotion left in their face. I didn't miss them. “How was the English Buffalo? Damien shoot a hole into your wallet yet?”

My hands haven't left my face. “Alicia.”

“What?”

“Damien is in the other room. Get your friends out of here.” I pick up two of the candles on the ground to extinguish. Gunther then grabs my wrist and squeezes, staring at me. The flames reel back as if expressing my surprise for me. “You good, Gunther?”

“De inferno venit.” The words fall out of his mouth like dominos... Did his pupils just get smaller? I jerk away from him and put the candles on a small table next to the wilting fern.

“What in the world– Alicia, I need to talk to you. Can you get up? Because...” If she trips over those candles, I will kill a man. I might as well kill her. That stupid paint.

“Oh, um, sure.” She leaps over the stack of leather (I hope it's leather from an animal) books and prances across the living room. She pulls me outside and throws a thumbs up to Carlos. Carlos does nothing. Carlos is useless.

We’re in the dark now again, and she turns on the hall lamp, fidgeting with the copper string and pulling it once with a flick of her wrist. This sprezzatura is going to be the end of me. “Is everything alright?”

“Am I alright? You set up a séance to summon a demon with your weird friends, and you expect me to be alright? This is the fifth one this week.”

“It's not a séance...” Then she mumbles something, adjusting her turtleneck over her mouth and looking to the orange lampshade.

“What did you say?”

“We were going to summon... something,” she says a little louder. I heard it, but I want her to say it louder. Specifically, I want her to say it aloud for me to hear her clearly without that turtleneck (which is not her color) over her mouth– maybe then, she’ll know what she’s doing to me– but not so loud that Damien will hear. “We were not going to summon a demon, Sam, but if you want to do a séance for a demon, I can always talk to Gunther about it.” She whispers, clutching her chest like a proud mother, “He's really happy with his progress in Latin right now. He just learned the words for ‘walk’, ‘run’, and ‘Satan’. I didn't know Duolingo had that course so early.”

“I need that living room. Get your candles away from my flammable pillows and go into the basement or something.”

“We don't have a basement.”

“Exactly. That's why I added the ‘or something.’ Literally do anything else everywhere else except in this house. Oh, I always knew you were gonna ruin this house somehow.”

“How am I gonna do that?” She props her elbow up on the table holding up the lamp. “Now I’m insulted.”

“That coat of paint outside took half a day to put on. I can't have whatever magic you're doing tamper with it.”

“It took half a day to teach you how to use the computer to hire the guy to put the new coat of paint on.”

“That's not true.” She has a point. It took a long time for me to use that piece of trash.

“If the magic we were preparing happened to tamper with the paint, I... apologize.” She says the word as if it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth. “But we are not leaving. I organized this for months, and this week was our rehearsal week. So you're going to have Damien in the other room until we’re done. Try the kitchen.” She rubs the sore spot on her ring finger but not sincerely focusing on it. “Feed each other grapes or somethin’. That's what people in couples do, right?”

“Is everything okay in there,” Damien asks from the kitchen.

I draw my lips in a tight line and grab Alicia by the shoulders. “You leaving is the only option. I'm going to talk to Damien now. I expect not to see a candle on the floor or a knife or even a drop of blood on my new cushions when I come back. Am I making myself clear?”

She smiles. “Crystal.” I search for a hint of facetiousness in her face or her lips. There is only pleasantness, and I sigh, walking toward the kitchen. “Wait.” I freeze and slowly turn around to her. Her arms are now in akimbo. “What's that in your left jacket pocket?” I immediately jerk my hand to whatever she is referring to. “It's oddly box-shaped. I thought you would’ve gotten the circle box instead.”

“Nope.” I speed-walk and find him in the kitchen. Damien was snickering at his phone. I bet I can guess exactly what he was looking at. “How’s your Dad?”

“Oh, he’s doing great. He just sent me this picture of him making his Corgi do a handstand. Look.” There they are. The Corgi has a baby face, but I suppose that is how it is for all dogs. Most dogs. “Dr. Stefan is going to take them for a walk soon. Do you want me to text him for you?”

“Yes, tell him I say hello.” I lean on the granite island and jump a little bit from the smooth, cold touch. Like a moth to a flame, I go to the refrigerator and grab some Havarti. Damien immediately sets down his phone, and before I can slice some and place it on a paper plate, he asks me:

“Is your sister okay? What's going on over there?”

I hand him a piece of cheese, and he basically swallows it whole. “Oh, she's going to move out of that room soon, don't worry. She said so. She and her friends are having their book club, but she implied it would be over soon.”

“I thought those were her Zumba friends. Are they also her book club friends?” He stares into the void of the cheese. “Does she even have a book club?”

He carefully applies the cheese to the Triscuits from the cabinet as I say, “No. Sorry, I've been waiting for her to move out for a while, but ever since she couldn't spend time and take care of my Dad anymore–” Euphemisms are great this late at night–

“Yeah, she’s been staying here with you. You don't have to apologize.” He shoves the Triscuits in his mouth. He has the cheeks of a chipmunk right now. It's adorable.

His adorable face is motivating me to get that room. Alicia and Gunther and Carlos are going to get out of that room, and Damien and I will watch a really bad movie while nursing a charcuterie board with excellently-fluffed pillows, and then we will have peace. We will have time. I will have time to do what I must. “We’re going to invade the room.”

He laughs and refrains from taking another bite. “Good luck. From the hallway, they sounded angry when you walked in.”

They ruin my paint, I ruin their night. I still get a pretty nice night as my net gain. “If they haven't already moved out, then that's their issue.” I take his arm and tell him we can set up our stuff later. Chances are if there is even a speck of red on the couch, I will burn the couch altogether. Carlos opens the door before I can touch the steaming hot handle. “We’re invading,” I explain. Damien nods as my backup.

Carlos winces. “I don't know if you can do that. We’re just packing up.” He has that stupid sweater T-shirt thing that Alicia told me he got from a white elephant party last Christmas. The last thing I got from a white elephant game was a bag of packing peanuts my Dad tricked me into getting. All the protein in the world, he said to the gigantic, garishly-wrapped box. I know he hated me.

“Let us through, or else.” Damien sticks his head between the doorway and my head.

There is a whoosh and a flash of dark light, and I blink. The paint is now gray instead of white for the door. I hear Latin and the wince of Alicia. Carlos smiles widely with fear in his eyes. “Hah... W-what?” My face falls and grows back hardened. I beckon Damien, shove Carlos’s body out of the way, and see my sister, kneeling next to the teensy cauldron. I look up before I can register the dark red gathering at the bottom. Gunther is there, tripping over the trill of the “r” in an incantation book. I want to punt my sister. “Alicia.”

“Oh, hello. Sorry, that was a mispronunciation on Gunther’s part. Oh, and also.” She sighs in a sing-song tone. “We aren't moving.”

I laugh and can't stop laughing. “You have to. You don't have a choice. You said you’d leave.” I gesture around the room. I could have used that TV there an hour ago. Lacey Chabert is on. Right now, she’s playing the small town girl who falls in love with the cold-hearted executive who– bless his heart– doesn't understand the meaning of Christmas (perhaps from some childhood trauma). I can't think of the title though. That is what Damien and I should be watching. Not this bloodbath. “Please?”

“You promised last night that we could have some alone time together, my group and I,” she says. “You said we could be using the room.”

“Did you really promise that,” Damien asks. I whip to him and sort of flail my arms at him desperately. “Look, I’ve been a bystander during this whole... thing, and I’d appreciate it if I had a say. Y’know. Just a little.”

Alicia sighs and wrings her hands. “I don't want you two to fight.” I look at her and am about to tell her she needs to move out, but she interrupts my thoughts. “Okay. I’ll let you two in on a little secret. The boys and I had a little plan for tonight that involves you two.”

Oh, so she has a plan. I’ll humor her. “What plan?”

She opens her mouth and closes it as if she is a fish. “Gunther, can you help me out here? Come on, you speak English...” His pupils are suspiciously small. They're the size of a pixel. “Fine. Don't say anything. We were going to resurrect one of our friends for you two. Nothing too horrible. Actually, it's going to benefit you a lot.”

I suppose there's no other way to tell her other than “You're moving out.” So I shake my head and tell her she has to move out in a week. Alicia doesn't understand. So I pick up the book from her hands. No, I snatch it.

Her expression sinks. “Sam, you're going to regret this–” Here is when I officially snatch the book. “You don't know how to use that, Sam–” I toss Damien the book. “You can't toss it around like that. It doesn't like that–”

“Stop, Alicia. I can't let you stay here anymore all day and interrupt my private time with the very strange and, frankly, stupid things you do. I can't take it anymore. Damien, please throw away the book.”

She slowly backs up, and one of her friends nears Damien. I can't see. My vision is too fuzzy. “You don't know what you're dealing with–”

Damien chuckles and touches Gunther on the shoulder who immediately leaps back like a cartoon cat. “Hey, how do you pronounce this?”

“Damien, just put the book in the garbage–”

Gunther waves his hand dismissively as I speak. “‘Ibi redibis non, morieris in bello’.”

Where there wasn't wind before there is wind now. So, there is wind everywhere. The candles are knocked over. The lights flicker once as if they are fluorescents, but when they fade away, it’s like I’m on the surface of the sun. The paint turns pitch black.

“You shouldn't have made me say that,” Gunther hisses.

The candles roar with fire again. I look up from hiding my face in Damien’s matted hair. The heat somehow emphasizes the coconut shampoo I made him buy. There is my father. Wait. There is my father. I look up, then I glower at Alicia.

“Do you see now why I wanted it to be a surprise,” she asks.

My father shakes ashes off of his head. “Ow. It's really cold here. Gah... Hey, I know this place.” 

“Dad?” This is from me. Damien says nothing and has his mouth agape in wonder at my father’s suit. I’m surprised whatever afterlife he ended up in didn't wrinkle it from the day he died.

“Dad!” This is from her. She ordered the suit for him.

He nods his head at her. “Alicia.” He glances at me. “Samuel. It’s... quite an experience to see you both.” He blinks wildly and whips around the living room. The cauldron has the stench of rust. It is also full. I don't bother to see what it is full of. “There were two other men here. Where did they go?” The door slams, and we better all hear the hushed ‘Go go go’ from within the hallway.

“My God.” I turn to her. “You summoned him? Him?” I find myself unwillingly lowering my voice when I say, “I never wanted to see his face again after the funeral. I told you that verbatim.”

She takes a ragged breath. “You don't know my reasoning. You never bothered to listen.”

I clench my hair in my hands. “I can't ‘bother to listen’ because you never told me in the first place.”

“Shh.” It is a harsh Shh. It's like a knife that takes no time to do its work. We stop and stare at my father, straightening our postures and shifting our feet.

“Why are you all whispering? I didn't do anything.”

I am about to tear into him. His body glimmers and shifts like light on water, but his expression does not. “Don't you gaslight me again–”

“That was me. That was me who just spoke.” I frown as I turn to Damien, his face contorted like a crumpled piece of paper. “I don't want to be here anymore, Sam. I don't feel happy right now. I don't know what's going on, and you seem angry, and I don't want to intrude in your... business right now.”

Alicia steps ahead of us and in front of the spectral being. “Dad, I never told you why I brought you here. I want you to give Sam your blessing.”

We all turn to her. My father turns to her because I know from experience that he has never heard such a ridiculous thing, and those words will leave his mouth soon. Damien turns because he didn't know my plan, and now it is foiled. I turn because I have nothing else to do, and to deal with my shock I have to do something stimulating or I will fall like the ashes from my father’s head. She shrivels.

“I have never heard such a ridiculous thing,” my father says, readjusting his tie. “Blessing for what?”

“Yeah, blessing for what?” Damien stays silent as he steps closer to me, keeping his eyes on the candles and almost stumbling on one. I leap to him and hold him up. What he says here is quiet. “If it's what I think it is, I don't think that's how blessings work.”

“If you all can't properly communicate, then I’ll have to step in.” 

My therapist tells me to take a step back if I get overwhelmed. But if I do right now, I’ll be caught on fire. 

“Dad, Sam wants to propose to Damien tonight– Yes, it's not traditional. Just, hush. He has the box. Before you died, you never accepted their relationship. You know that. You never gave him validation. You never said anything.” My father knows it's true. Damien’s eyes stop burning and start sparkling.

“Huh. Well, then...” He paces around the room and walks through the candles, his ghost morphing around the flames. He eyes the walls. “Did you all do a paint job?” We couldn't do it even if we tried. “I didn't know how to deal with it. Because I was alive. Now that I’m dead, it doesn't really affect me anymore. I'm sort of... ambivalent about it.” I have never seen my father this apathetic about anything I have ever done. “This room has changed. So has this house.”

“Are you fine with that?” He swivels to me when I say that. “You know what? I don't care. I don't need your acceptance. But it would have been nice to have at least something from my father. Anything. I want what Damien has with his Dad. I wanted at least something. I don't need pride. Hey, I need something.” I shrug and burst into laughter and/or tears. It's so hot that the sweat on my forehead could either be truly sweat or not.

He looks at his polished shoes, shining orange. “Well... I understand.” He doesn't. “I... I hope you're happy. Damien.” He floats to him. “I’ve seen you only once last year, but you seem alright. You have nice hair. It's not unkempt. I like the coconut scent. It suits you.” He floats to Alicia. “You need to find something else to do. You could’ve gotten yourself in a lot of trouble summoning something like me... I'm surprised you could. I guess you could say I'm impressed. Hm.” She beams. “And please learn how to speak at least some Latin. Or at least pronounce it right. You don't want the spirit of a serial killer here. Nor do you want a demon. Trust me.”

My father turns to me. “You there.” You there? “I hope you live earnestly, with the people you hopefully love. You know what I mean.”

I have no idea what he means, but he has said something. He has said literally anything. And that is fine with me. My arms are limp now. Damien is now next to me, inching closer.

“Is that good for you? I know I’ve been a jerk to you, but I guess since I’m dead, I won't find myself being a jerk. I’m sorry. I just want you to know that I hope you are happy.” I... nod. My father shrugs. “Well, I don't know where I’m going to go now. I don't know how to get back to my realm. So, I might just go haunt some houses until my time is up. Are the Benedicts still living down the street?” My sister nods. “Perfect. After that, I'll find those rascals you were with and get them to put me back. Goodbye.” He does a half wave and walks into the wall. The paint becomes brighter by the second as we wait in silence for anything else. I doubt we would be surprised if the ghost of someone like Genghis Khan would abduct us in two seconds.

That's it? Is that all that needed to be? He said he was sorry, but he said it in a way which made me think he wasn't. Is that all I need? I suppose so. I have people near me who want to be near me. And I suppose that is good. I don't want any more weirdness. I want to propose. I want that. I don't want to look at another speck of blood again.

However, before I do that, I owe my sister at least something. I’ll spare the niceties for now. I can be sappy to her and help her in her apartment search later. I need my energy spent in another place. Well, not better spent. Just spent in different places. “Thank you.” She beams. “Now, please leave.” She nods and scrambles to close the hallway door behind her. The candles are still going, but they are soft now. Within the blink of an eye, I slide the ring onto his finger and step back, examining him. Looking at him is now as easy as smiling. “So, can we watch Lacey Chabert now?”

Damien nods. “Oh, who’s that other woman? Candace Cameron Bure?” “I’d rather not.”